Deliberations before running another Wikipedia editing assignment

Abstract

**Please note that the full text is embargoed** ABSTRACT: In assessing a popular Open Educational Resource that instructs and is shaped by students, I weigh the costs for both instructors and students in using classroom Wikipedia editing assignments. Based on experiences from before and during the Covid era, I assess the ROI in instructor time and attention, reviewing what has worked best or been a struggle for editing projects aimed at expanding linguistics stubs. Successfully launching these engaged learning tasks encompasses two areas: filling Wikipedia content gaps and building student skills. Content gap concerns include finding relevant page topics for students to work with; recognizing constraints on biography pages (Wagner et al. 2016); seeking appropriately copyrighted graphics (Qaiser et al. 2022); and using the modularity of pages on minority languages. Student research and technology skill concerns entail supporting students in sharing new knowledge; managing instructor time to track students’ training on the wiki editing tools along with their existing content assignments; using the benefits of groupwork to practice library skills training (Stvan 2021); and integrating the WikiEdu interface with other online course tools.